I rode the epic Kennedy - Priest Rock - Saint Joseph's loop from the house yesterday. Here are the details:
Distance: 27.5 Miles
Vertical: 2748 Feet
Time: 3:43
Average: 7.4 Mph
I rode the Tracer but it can certainly be done on a cross bike. Man, the Kennedy climb is a stiffy. I got an early start, leaving the house at 6:30 but it still wasn't early enough for what turned out to be a 90+ degree day.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
First Commute by Bike
I rode the Scorcher today and clocked a personal best of 30min9sec to cover 7.88 miles yielding an average speed of 15.7 Mph. Not bad for a 53:23 fixed gear bike with a top speed of 19 Mph.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Cable Free -- Week 3
It's been a couple of weeks since we canceled our cable service and we seem to be over some of the withdrawal symptoms now. Part of the reason for cutting the cord was our move from Denver to San Jose. Now that it's complete we can settle down and see if this really will work.
We just had AT&T Uverse installed taking only the internet product and skipping the TV and Voice offerings. It took the guy over three hours to complete the install. That has got to be expensive for AT&T. I elected to get the 18Mb/s service for about $50/Month. Adding the TV service (with HD and a DVR) would add at least another $50/month to my bill.
On the programming side there has been a minor set-back. We had a great live morning news from CW2 in Denver but now that we are in the bay area I can't find the equivalent.
The biggest change has been from simply watching less TV. I'm staying in a hotel room for the first time since we cut the cord and I realized that I haven't turned on the TV in the room yet. I don't think this is a bad thing.
We just had AT&T Uverse installed taking only the internet product and skipping the TV and Voice offerings. It took the guy over three hours to complete the install. That has got to be expensive for AT&T. I elected to get the 18Mb/s service for about $50/Month. Adding the TV service (with HD and a DVR) would add at least another $50/month to my bill.
On the programming side there has been a minor set-back. We had a great live morning news from CW2 in Denver but now that we are in the bay area I can't find the equivalent.
The biggest change has been from simply watching less TV. I'm staying in a hotel room for the first time since we cut the cord and I realized that I haven't turned on the TV in the room yet. I don't think this is a bad thing.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Cutting the cord
After leaving my position in the TV industry last month I actually had to start paying for TV service for the first time in many years. I had subscriptions to all the major services and had taken that access for granted. I took a look at my bill and realized how expensive these services have become, I had one bill that was $216 per month for only TV and Broadband service.
After analyzing our viewing patterns I realized that we really only watch a small handful of channels -- History, Science, and Discovery and our local broadcast channels and of course, SpeedTV.
We looked at Comcast, DISH, DirecTV and AT&T and came away really frustrated. Because I already had service with many of these providers, no promotional discounts are available and everything is full price. Because DISH and DirecTV don't offer broadband service and the associated bundle discount, their prices are higher when combined with a broadband only product from another provider.
The real frustration is with the channel packages, We were happy the most basic packages from most providers, typically in the $25-$35 range -- if you ignored SpeedTV. Moving to the package the has SpeedTV doubled or tripled the cost every time. I realized that just watching SpeedTV would add $30+/Mo. Weighed against their ever increasing NASCAR focus and there many weeks dealyed coverage of Grand-Am and SCCA World Challenge and Bob Varsha's inane F1 commentary, I realized that I don't need them anymore.
So I "cut the cord" and ended my pay TV subscriptions.
I'm now using a Mac Mini - in the living room, and a old MacBook Pro -- in the bedroom, as STBs. Ironically the largest challenge hasn't been getting content. It's getting the PCs to play video quietly. Both the Mini and the MBP tend to overheat during long periods of decoding video, forcing the fans to run at full speed. This becomes the loudest thing in the bedroom after 20-30 minutes.
I was using an AppleTV (which seem really quiet all the time) but found the fact that it costs $$$ to watch just about anything really frustrating. I find a PC and sites like Hulu and Netflix to be more useful for me.
While all this has been interesting, the service providers are likely going to put an end to this by moving to usage based pricing for broadband access. Just this morning an executive with TimeWarner Cable indicated that much like AT&T, cable broadband providers will have to move to a usage based billing model soon.
After analyzing our viewing patterns I realized that we really only watch a small handful of channels -- History, Science, and Discovery and our local broadcast channels and of course, SpeedTV.
We looked at Comcast, DISH, DirecTV and AT&T and came away really frustrated. Because I already had service with many of these providers, no promotional discounts are available and everything is full price. Because DISH and DirecTV don't offer broadband service and the associated bundle discount, their prices are higher when combined with a broadband only product from another provider.
The real frustration is with the channel packages, We were happy the most basic packages from most providers, typically in the $25-$35 range -- if you ignored SpeedTV. Moving to the package the has SpeedTV doubled or tripled the cost every time. I realized that just watching SpeedTV would add $30+/Mo. Weighed against their ever increasing NASCAR focus and there many weeks dealyed coverage of Grand-Am and SCCA World Challenge and Bob Varsha's inane F1 commentary, I realized that I don't need them anymore.
So I "cut the cord" and ended my pay TV subscriptions.
I'm now using a Mac Mini - in the living room, and a old MacBook Pro -- in the bedroom, as STBs. Ironically the largest challenge hasn't been getting content. It's getting the PCs to play video quietly. Both the Mini and the MBP tend to overheat during long periods of decoding video, forcing the fans to run at full speed. This becomes the loudest thing in the bedroom after 20-30 minutes.
I was using an AppleTV (which seem really quiet all the time) but found the fact that it costs $$$ to watch just about anything really frustrating. I find a PC and sites like Hulu and Netflix to be more useful for me.
While all this has been interesting, the service providers are likely going to put an end to this by moving to usage based pricing for broadband access. Just this morning an executive with TimeWarner Cable indicated that much like AT&T, cable broadband providers will have to move to a usage based billing model soon.
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